Lok Sabha polls 2014: Meghalaya has the highest percentage of voters pushing NOTA

SHILLONG: Meghalaya emerged with the highest percentage of voters who chose the NOTA option available with the EVMs introduced for the first time, an election official said today.

As many as 2.8 per cent of the 10,80,845 voters pressed the NOTA button instead of the other 10 candidates in the two parliamentary seats in Meghalaya, he said.

In Tura where former Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma was re-elected for the ninth term, 19,276 persons pushed the NOTA button, the official said.

As many as 10,960 voters in the state capital also chose not to cast their votes for any of the eight candidates in the fray, but pressed the NOTA button where sitting Congress MP Congress Vincent H Pala retained his seat.

The election official, however, said the NOTA option would not impact the results of the elections irrespective of the number of votes it garnered.

"The NOTA option on EVMs has no electoral value. Even if the maximum number of votes cast is for NOTA, the candidate getting the most of the remaining votes would be declared winner," he said.

About 1.5 per cent of voters in Mizoram also chose the NOTA button.